On March 9, 2007, two right-wing activist judges sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit voted against the will of the people by overturning D.C.'s long-standing ban on handguns. If the decision stands, these two federal judges will have deprived the citizens of D.C. of a strict handgun law enacted thirty years ago and still strongly supported by the people, including its law enforcement community.

For three decades, the gun lobby has worked in Congress to pass legislation to overturn D.C.'s strong gun laws. Now the gun lobby threatens to achieve through the courts what it has been unable to achieve in Congress!

The Parker decision defies 70 years of U.S. Supreme Court precedent. The Supreme Court in 1939 held that the "right to keep and bear arms" in the Second Amendment must be read in light of the express purpose of the Amendment - to ensure the effectiveness of organized state militias. Yet in the Parker decision, these judges held that the purpose of the right to keep and bear arms is broader and includes private activities like self-defense and hunting.

The Parker decision found that the Second Amendment guarantees an "individual right to keep and bear arms" that is as fundamental as the guarantees of free speech in the First Amendment. This will embolden the gun lobby to use this theory to challenge local, state, and federal gun laws. It will also embolden criminal defense lawyers to argue that indictments and convictions for violations of gun laws must be thrown out because the laws themselves violate the "individual right" to bear arms.

We must prepare for a tidal wave of lawsuits and court proceedings in which sensible gun laws will be challenged under the Second Amendment.

Sensible gun laws of every kind are put at risk by the "individual rights" theory of the Parker decision.

If this case reaches the Supreme Court, it will produce the definitive judicial ruling on the meaning of the Second Amendment that will determine the fate of sensible gun laws for many generations.

But this is only the beginning. We will need your help and the help of all of members as we take our fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

To donate to the Brady Gun Law Defense Fund, click here. To learn more about the Parker decision, click here.